Why teach children to read through spelling and writing?

November 28th, 2007

Excerpt from an article published in Newsweek magazine(Oct 22, 2007)

Petitto, for instance, led a 2007 study that settled a decades-long debate over how children learn to spell: does the brain uses the same processes for words you can sound out (”blink”) as for those you can’t (”yacht”)? Brain imaging showed that blink-like words use the brain’s soundprocessing system, while yacht-like words rely on circuits that encode memory and meaning. That suggests “a dual-route model of spelling,” Petitto says. “Knowing this, there’s no way I’d teach a child spelling without phonological information. This is finally evidence that the brain needs that and uses it.”

The new journal, called Mind, Brain, and Education, is full of other fascinating hints. One study found that when children begin forming mental representations of letters, more than the visual sense comes into play. Crucially, the brain’s premotor area, which plans movements, does. That suggests that having children try to write letters at the same time that they’re learning to recognize them might produce what Denes Szucs and Usha Goswami of the University of Cambridge call “a multisensory representation” of letters, and “deepen learning.”

The full article is titled The case for Chutes and Ladders“, written by Sharon Begly. She cited two recently done studies.

1) Laura-Ann Petitto of the University of Toronto’s study of the dualprocessing of the spelling of words - and the need to include phonic instruction for reading.

2) A study published in the new journal of Mind, Brain, and Education by Denes Szucs and Usha Goswami of the University of Cambridge: early readers use the pre-motor part of the brain, so writing instruction is important for reading instruction.

Many asked me if they know the phonetic system of English, can’t they use use what they know to teach their children, why should they use Spell to Write and Read? I would say, SWR doesn’t just teach phonics, it teaches a completely different methodology which employs multi-sensory approach to deepen learning.

And I thought these study conclusions were fun, because those of us who are using SWR are already doing just that. :-)